


The Balance

by elvntari



Series: A Oneshot for Every Chapter of The Silmarillion [2]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Yavanna's implied bisexual crush on Varda, Years of the Trees, aule and yavanna's marriage problems, marital dispute, marital trouble, of aule and yavnna
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-08 00:28:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18884416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elvntari/pseuds/elvntari
Summary: When a realisation shakes Yavanna's perspective on her marriage, she finds herself in need of comfort from someone uninvolved.





	The Balance

**Author's Note:**

> didnt forget about this series!! this is a short one because its a short chapter and i couldnt find much inspiration there, but oh well!

Yavanna had known something was wrong.

Well, not wrong, perhaps, but unusual. Whenever Aulë had been absorbed in his work before, he had always found some way to spin tales about all of the kinds of things that he was making to her—to get her to listen to his every musing, to offer her input, just to be included, but this time was different.

She didn’t want to be the person to cause strife in their marriage, though, so she sat back and reclused herself in her own projects, weaving spirits of song for the saplings that grew in the gardens of their home, looking east, wondering if their siblings were going to be okay, and trying not to think about it. Maybe she knew that when the world ended, only the children would make it back to Eru, but maybe she could make it so that _her_ children would return to _her._

It didn’t seem like too big of an issue. Not when all she was doing was offering them parts of herself.

It _shouldn’t_ have seemed like too big of an issue.

But then Aulë came home with that look on his face that said _I have something as exciting as it is nerve-wracking to talk to you about,_ and for a moment she eased up before reading deeper.

“Yavanna—”

She stood, keeping level with him. Under her gaze, he was helpless.

“I need to explain something to you.”

 

\---

 

Perhaps, in hindsight, there were too many things wrong with them in the first place for him to have ever told her what was going on. Maybe their marriage wasn’t as good as she had thought. Any number of things could be true—maybe they were true simply because she brought them into existence with her thought. Were her kind not those who could do wonderful feats like that? Could they rewrite the past?

Apparently not. But the thoughts plagued her as she sat alone in the centre of the grove, considering them with the severity that she would consider any matter of the fate of Arda.

Manwë, her king (if she felt comfortably calling him that anywhere other than to his face), said that it would be alright, that there would be justice in the world.  She wasn’t so sure.

If there was justice, then why all the horror? Why create world just to destroy it? Why…any of that?

None of it made any degree of sense to her.

_If there is justice in this world, then why am I here, alone, away from home, trying to reconcile all of the terrible things I know with the fact that there is meant to be justice?_

She lay back against the grass, and shut her eyes, feeling out for the plants—her children—around her, greeting them, assuring them that everything would all be okay, even if she wasn’t so sure that she could promise that anymore.

Maybe she was just being dramatic.

She didn’t feel like she was being dramatic. She felt like she was being watched.

She opened her eyes to a starry sky above her, to nebulae exploding with creation itself, and eyes burning bright like stars.

“My Queen,” she murmured, still half-stuck in her meditative state, still entwined with the roots of the world around her.

“You seem upset.” Varda offered her a hand, the pinpricks of light on her night-black skin shifting as she moved.

“What gives you that impression?”

“I just know.”

Yavanna allowed herself to take her friend’s hand, to be pulled up from the ground and into an embrace with the closest she could get to the infinite cosmos. It felt nice to be held. It felt even nicer to be held in the arms of someone she knew could destroy the whole world on a whim, should she so desire.

Manwë was not truly her king, but Varda was, without doubt, her queen.

“You’ve spoken to my husband, I assume.”

“Yes,” said Yavnna, pulling away, “it was…helpful.”

“Yet you do not seem helped.”

“I’m not sure there’s any further action I can take, old friend,” she sighed, “other than rebel and tear this whole place down, but that doesn’t seem productive.”

“And I’ve already one too many friends to that line of thinking.” Varda fell silent for a moment. They had decided to leave that particular topic of conversation untapped before, and Yavanna wasn’t going to break that oath any time soon. Or any time ever.

The skies above began to cloud with the intense, imposing darkness of an incoming rainstorm. “I should go—”

“No.” Varda gripped at her wrist. “Please don’t. I can speak to him; I can make it all right, I promise. There is nothing I can’t do.”

It was her turn to read into her friend’s words, and to exercise some of that priceless intuition that she had been gifted by hours of practice. “You don’t seem convinced,” she said, softly, squeezing her friend’s shoulder.

“We’re good people Yavanna,” she whispered. “We create, instead of destroy. Sometimes I wonder why creation must always be paired with destruction.”

“It’s the balance of things. The cycle.”

“Does it have to be? Is that the nature of all that is—to be balanced and recycled?”

Yavanna remained silent, watching the clouds grow as they stood at each other’s side. It would rain soon, and her children would be fed, and she would be able to relax for one more day, as the world kept running the cycles it had always been meant to.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> please leave a comment with your thoughts if you enjoyed!


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